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Folklore and/or Fakelore

Yesterday I upset a few people on Facebook when I joked about my possible future legacy by writing:

It hit me today that when I shuffle off this mortal coil I will not be remembered for the thousands upon thousands of people making music because of my work.

I will instead be bitched about because I have never found a use for drop-thumb.

I love the banjo, but the “banjo scene” sucks.

Somebody was quick to point out that I do teach drop-thumb, but that is beside the point.

Most of what we know about history is wrong in one way or another. The George Washington cherry tree story or the story of Johnny Appleseed are perfect examples.

George Washington never chopped down a cherry tree or confessed the deed to his father saying, “I cannot tell a lie”. The story was made up by Mason Locke Weems as a morally instructive lesson. A fable. Somewhere along the way, people liked the lie so much it became part of history. I was taught the cherry tree nonsense as fact – and got slapped across the face by a mean nun for pointing out it was a lie!

I was also taught in school that Johnny Appleseed gave away apple trees to promote good nutrition. The historical truth is that John Chapman planted trees with sour apples. Not to be eaten, but to be used in hard cider. Booze. He did not give trees away, but planted acres of orchards to claim homestead land that he later sold to settlers. His roughshod lifestyle was due to his working in the wilderness to claim land before settlers got their mitts on it.

This happens in folk music all the time. Galax, VA is an easy example. The average phony banjo expert today would have you believe that a couple of old guys in that area influenced all of American banjo playing. The truth is that the average banjo player before the Internet age rarely heard of any of this music unless they went to the Galax festival at some point. When I finally did hear round peak style banjo I thought it was a struggling banjo student! I sat there and said, “What the hell is this?” Imagine my surprise years later when one of the folks marketing the majesty of Round Peak (let’s call him “Bob”) would pop out of the woodwork threatening to destroy me with the help of Banjo Newsletter.

I should tell you all that story. . . It’s really funny.

We were just starting to build banjos when “Bob and Dan” contacted us. They wanted us to give one or both of them a Somerset banjo to “evaluate” before deciding if the instrument was worthy of a review that we neither solicited nor wanted. They also wanted details about our capacity and projected build numbers.

Trying to sleaze a banjo off of us was irritating, but the request for information on our business was a shock because “Bob and Dan” were both endorsing different banjo brands. How can you give an honest review of an instrument when you are being compensated to endorse an instrument from a competing builder?

The whole thing stank to high heaven and we were busy, so we replied with one word. That word was, “Nuts.”

History lovers will know where we got that one.

“Dan” had previously contacted me offering to write a nice review of The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo in exchange for a nice review of his book. I pointed out that I had not read his book. He said that it did not matter.

Isn’t show-biz glamorous?

We figured that saying nuts would make these guys go away . . . we were wrong. The craftsman who was building the first run of Somerset banjos started getting calls from “Bob” (a man we had never met) who began asking for details about our business while (you guessed it) warning him about us.

So I called “Bob”.

I dialed the phone. He answers and I say, “Hi Bob, this is Patrick Costello.”

I didn’t get the chance to say anything more. “Bob” starts shouting and cursing me. I mean he is in a frenzy. A hate-fest right out of 1984.

I tried a couple of times to talk to him but he kept on yelling, screaming and cursing.

Then “Bob” says, “I am going to use Banjo Newsletter to tell everybody what you are. I am going to ruin you!” He was still going when I said a few things that shut him up.

Then I hung up and Dear Old Dad and I called Banjo Newsletter.

I still have the written apology from “Bob” that we told Banjo Newsletter we needed to see. it’s one of those little things I keep to remind myself of the true nature of the business end of folk music.

Needless to say, we will never in a million years be mentioned in Banjo Newsletter. I am OK with that, but I am also aware that there is a double edge to this in that, from the magazine’s perspective I do not exist.

This is much like the scene in The Ten Commandments where Seti I declares:

Let the name of Moses be stricken from every book and tablet. Stricken from every pylon and obelisk of Egypt. Let the name of Moses be unheard and unspoken, erased from the memory of man, for all time.

I am not comparing myself to Moses. Moses was a great man who pissed off the Pharaoh and led his people to freedom. I am simply a musician who can inspire and piss people off in the same breath.

The same erasing from the obelisks is happening on the Internet. Mention my name in the wrong place and you run the chance of cult indoctrination style pressuring to convince you that I am wrong or evil or the harbinger of the apocalypse.

You will be told that I don’t teach drop-thumb, in spite of the fact that I do.

You will be told I don’t teach alternate tunings, that my rhythm instruction will make it IMPOSSIBLE to progress, that the basic frailing strum is not traditional and/or that “bum ditty” will make it IMPOSSIBLE to progress, jam with other musicians or ever fit in with the beautiful people.

Truth has nothing to do with these weird antics. It’s all about money.

When we posted my first banjo workshops through a dial-up modem in 1997 there were arguments concerning whether or not Dear Old and I should be allowed to give away what music teachers sold for a profit.

When we started filming interviews for The Down Neck Gazette we occasionally had to contend with the folks we were traveling cross-country to visit meeting us with a frown because some banjo vigilante had called or emailed them ahead of our arrival warning them about us.

I’ll ask you again, aint’ show-biz glamorous?

When I wrote The How and the Tao of Old Time Banjo publishing people laughed at me. They said it would never sell. So we started our own publishing company. We printed and distributed the book ourselves. As it started selling people began demanding free copies to evaluate in order to decide if the book was good enough to pass on to a (prepare yourself for stupidity) a “banjoista” for review. When I did not play any of their games some people in the “banjo scene” got mad.

When I gave away The How and the Tao of Old TIme Banjo freely to the world under a Creative Commons license banjo people went nuts. Somebody actually wrote me the day I gave the book away saying, “You can’t do this!” I wrote back with the same reply my grandfather gave the day he punched our monsignor in the face, “I can do any God-dammed thing I want to!” The angry banjo person never wrote back.

Then my father and I were both banned from the banjo forums. Once in a while we were allowed back in, but the same idiots who harassed us in 1997 were always messing with us. They could say things to us. They could write horrible hate-mail and send it to my email account. If I defended myself or got exasperated the ban would recommence and my name would get dragged through the mud for days.

When I came up with the braille-friendly banjo tab system the banjo forums destroyed public support for the project. I have had other breakthroughs since then, but I’m cagey about sharing them. People love to claim my ideas or trash them. Hell, as soon as I launched the Sing The Banjo series someone started a Facebook Group to poach the idea for himself.

This is noting new. When I was starting out I was told that Lead Belly wrote Irene Goodnight. He did not. It shows up as a traditional tune in 1927’s American Songbag, collected by Carl Sandburg.

I was also told that Lead Belly, through the help of the Lomax family, used Irene to get early release from his prison sentence. This never happened. he was released early for good behavior.

The truth, as I know it, is that Huddie William Ledbetter hated being called Lead Belly. The truth is that Huddie Leadbetter played the twelve string guitar as well as piano, mandolin, harmonica, violin and accordion. He was an amazing but flawed personality who died in poverty while the Lomax family kept the money from his recordings and appearances.

The Lomax family is accredited for saving folk songs by working with the Library of Congress, but they copyrighted every song they recorded for themselves. They even have a claim on songs like Cripple Creek!

See how easy it is for a victim to be turned into someone who had been lifted up? See how easy it is for a carpetbagger to turned into a benefactor?

Somewhere along the line folk music became a business. When I was starting out people still shared for the love of the art. Today it’s all about the money. Workshops become performances. Lessons become dysfunctional memorization of tunes rather than learning to communicate and create with the language of music. Hell, banjo camps all feature Little Rascals style shows where the gurus play weakly and the shell-shocked students sit in weary silence – convinced they will never be as wonderful as the bush-league talent on shameless display.

I wouldn’t mind it so much if I was working against strong musicians. Most of the time the crap smeared on my name and on my work is by people with no way to stand out on their own. There is nothing compelling in their music or message, so they try to gin up business by scaring students away from teachers who will help them learn basic skills.

So much has been said and done to my name that it borders on the comic. I would have thrown my computer and my instruments in the bin twenty years ago, but I do love the craft. I love working with my dad. I also love watching my students grow as musicians.

I am not perfect. I am not always right – but I am never in doubt. I do have a failed fund-raiser for a banjo blues album. I trusted the wrong people, got ripped off and I am working to this very day to finish the project. It will be released as time, my health and funds allow.

In spite of my faults and missteps, I have helped an astonishing number of people. In the end I am not working for any kind of legacy or to have flowery words written about me by stupid people.

My job, as I see it, is to be replaced. This approach to music is not a business or intellectual property. It is a gift. A treasure. Even with nothing a good musician can sing, clap hands and stomp out a rhythm to make music. More than writers, poets, photographers or painters, a good folk musician can turn the ordinary into something extraordinary. We throw what we do into the air and change every person that hears us in profound ways.

My hope is that I fade away Jedi-style. Leaving room for the next teacher to step forward – and maybe leave a couple of funny stories for those new teachers to share between the songs.

Maybe my views on this will change down the road, but right now with my 49th birthday weeks away, I am content to help my students and aggravate the charlatans. People like “Bob and Dan” always get what is coming to them. Karma is a bitch.

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2 thoughts on “Folklore and/or Fakelore”

Patrick.what would it take to get your banjo blues album project back on track? Is there anyway we could get it going through a crowd fund me deal. I’d love to see more info about the banjo’s place in early blues music and how to get that sound today.

Patrick, you have helped me and countless others so much! Not only with banjo, but with maintaining a positive attitude and spreading joy no matter what. My 70th birthday is in a couple weeks. I should be the wiser one. But here I sit getting older but not much better at life. Thanks so much!!